10 Easy Tips on Improving Customer Service for your Small Business

“A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.” – Henry Ford

Did you know?

A bad customer service experience can:

• Chase a potential customer away?

• Make a customer decide never to buy from you again?

• Ruin the reputation of your business?

Customer service is reshaping businesses, and oddly, it is one strategy that most businesses seem to ignore the most. For every business out there, whether small, medium or large, the ultimate goal is sales. Now you might wonder what customer service has to do with that?

Great. Now, refer back to the list at the top. When all of the things listed above happen, your business can literally not make any sales, and that spells trouble. It doesn’t matter what your marketing campaigns are like, or how great your product is. You have to back it up with a winning customer service strategy, for maximum effects. Like the quote says, building a business that is also great at service to its customers is a straight road to making incredibly large profits.

With all of these in mind, here are:

10 tips on improving customer service for your business

These tips will help you improve customer satisfaction, boost loyalty and ensure that your customers keep coming back, thereby reducing the cost and effort you would otherwise need to retarget them again.

1. Get the right people for the job.

Being a customer service representative is not a small task. A person in this position has to be patient, attentive, great at communication, empathetic, persuasive and calm. They need to know what not to say to angry customer, for example. They also need to have a lot of product knowledge and be very resourceful.

2. Set Clear Customer Service Standards.

Uniformity is key. Setting simple standards that your customer service representative can understand and follow ensures a neat process for dealing with customers. It even helps to document your process, so that anytime you increase the number of staff in this department, there is a clear structure for them to follow. Documenting also helps you look at the process and improve it from time to time. When setting this process, consider things like the tone of language that suits your business values and would be perfect for your reps to communicate to your customers in, how they should record feedback, how to follow up with a customer, e.t.c

3. Provide Fast & Very Efficient Support.

No customer wants to wait 10 minutes to get a response to an enquiry or complaint. Some customers won’t even wait 5 minutes before concluding that your service is bad and make up their mind to never deal with you again. Offering fast support to a customer shows that you take them seriously, and more importantly, you take their time seriously as well. Remember that people barely have enough time to themselves, and definitely do not want to spend a lot of it chatting with a business. Saving time by being quick and efficient will make them appreciate you more.

Quick note: A customer who comes to make an enquiry has probably also sent the same message to some of your competitors. Replying them before the others do can help you close the deal quickly!

Related: Integrate Meta (Facebook & Instagram) for quick responses to customer orders

4. Sound like a Human.

It is important to introduce some flexibility in the way you respond to customers, even while maintaining the company tone and style of communication. Instead of sending template replies to every question and ending up sounding like a robot, apply active listening and empathy. All enquiries or complaints are not the same, and neither are all customers, and they should not be treated as such.

5. Improve your Interactions with your Customers.

It doesn’t end at just listening and empathising, but you need to take actionable steps to ensure that the customer’s issue is fixed, or that they get the answers to exactly what they’re asking. Customer service is supposed to be an entire journey with one end-goal in mind: the customer’s satisfaction. Until that happens, the journey is not complete.

6. Take and Implement Important Feedback.

Feedback is always important, as it helps you improve your processes as you go, and even the way you interact with your customers. Taking feedback helps you get a general sense of what your customers want, and how you can serve them better.

7. Track and Measure Performance.

You should set up customer service performance goals and track them as well, to understand how well your customer service is performing and how much more it can be improved on. For example, you can create a simple rating system that lets your customer rate you based on overall customer service, issue resolution time, response rate, e.t.c. Determine what matters to you most and then set up ways to track it.

8. Set and Monitor Goals.

Based on the performance you want to track, you can create goals that helps you perform better in terms of customer service. For example, if you note that your average response time is long, you can focus on reducing it. If resolution time takes 5 days based on the data you’ve gotten from tracking, you can put your efforts into making sure it’s not longer than a day.

9. Invest in Training

Training your customer service representative is also a very important tip as well. Dedicate some time to train them on how they can achieve the goals set, treat customers better and ensure they leave feeling very satisfied with the brand.

10. Take Good Care of Your Reps.

A happy customer service representative is a huge asset to any business. The satisfaction they feel towards your business will be reflected in the way they relate to your customers. Always encourage breaks, check in with them, set up reward schemes for performance, and flexible working practices. Also involve them in your plans and conversations about customer service strategies, as they may have ideas and suggestions you didn’t know you needed to hear. You need their best from them, so you need to give them your best as well.

Final tip:

You can also share successful customer satisfaction stories with your audience, with the consent of the customer involved. Just like you share customer reviews to build more trust, showing your audience how efficiently you resolve situations can have the same effect, as a potential customer now knows that you won’t flake or stress them out if they ever have an issue with your business.

Conclusion

“A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.” - Michael LeBoeuf

Getting your customer service strategy is important for the growth of your business. A customer who leaves you feeling satisfied will always recommend your product or service to the next person and will likely come back to you instead of going to your competitor. It doesn't matter if you're a small business just starting out and running your customer service yourself, or you're a medium sized or big business with tons of customer service reps. Treat customer service as a whole department that should be invested in, as it is one of the greatest tools for the success of any business.

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